Nail Clippers

you’re called, as if that’s all
you’re good for. As if no-one ever used you
to trim loose threads from a fraying hem
or as an improvised fishing weight.

When my hands grew big enough to use you—
to work you like a pump handle, snap—
I learned leverage in the flight of fragments
of snipped keratin. I never bit my nails.

I thought you looked like a locomotive,
sleek steel in futuristic lines. I deckled paper,
clipping edges into scalloped shapes
of different depths.

The little file jacknifes out, handy for shaping
just so, the soft points of crayons
or sharpening colored pencils.

You’re a big one, sized for toenails.
I found you in a bathroom drawer
in my parent’s house, vacated by death.

You stared up from a clump of smaller clippers
like a mother ‘gator among her young—

just like that, how you clapped your jaws.

Books Available
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside